CrashTofu

So...which archetypes are locked out for Free/Premium Players? Are Premium Players able to "buy" access to the rest of the archetypes (signified by the "+")?

I know it says "Pet Archetypes," but the official info now says that Free will have 8 and Premium will have 8+. If we assume that 4 of the 6 missing archetypes are the Khelds and VEATS, that leaves 2 more archetypes...but there are either 3 or 1 "Pet Archetypes". Obviously, Masterminds are one of them. But if Controllers count, wouldn't Dominators? And vice versa?

Was any of this cleared up during the chat?

Ah. I see now that it's MMs and Controllers...and that they open at Tier 5, which should be easily reachable by...everyone I know.

Just for clarification, will this be the LAST double XP weekend, since any further ones would be after Freedom goes live, or will there be post-Freedom double XP events?

Both of the reactivation events between the last combined Double XP / Reactivation and now were coupled with other events (Going Rogue and Global Server Access, respectively). There is reason to be hopeful enough to ask.

Not everything always makes it into the press release at first release, either. That is what these threads are for: to react and to ask questions for clarification.

I have subscribed without deactivation for a time spanning every one of those events and before and not once was I annoyed by the "big blow-outs." Beyond that, it makes fine sense to combine them, as 2xXP often reminds people just how fun City can be and gets people invested or re-invested in their characters. I have no idea what the numbers are, but I suspect that there were many people that re-activated their accounts after the combined weekend events. I know several that did just that.

Again, I was and am asking for clarification and a definitive answer, not speculation. I can speculate with the best of them, all on my own.

Will there be a simultaneous Free Reactivation Weekend and/or Free Server Transfers being handed out for Double XP Weekend?

Here's my favorite screenshot of the weekend, featuring the Mechanosaurs vs. Calistyx: http://twitpic.com/3uzdwn/full

Not pictured: Deinotherm (the photographer), and Velocireactor (hidden in FX, though you can estimate where she is by the blue rad effects).

We did mostly SFs after getting out of Praetoria (we went from 1-22 Friday evening, in roughly 5 hours). We finished Beast Beneath the Mountain, Silver Mantis, Imperious, and all of the Mako patron arc.

Most awesome bit this weekend? Lord Recluse, in the final mission of the patron arc, was worth, on average, 1,000,000 XP.

We made it with just a little time to spare! The Mechanosaurs all went from 1 to 50 in 29 hours of play time, spread over three days. As of 10:10pm Pacific Sunday, the last pair (we were all pacted) hit 50, after starting at 4:45pm Pacific Friday.

This Double XP Weekend, a bunch of LiveJournalers are making a dedicated team run from level 1 to level 50, once again! After the success of the Candy Monsters experiment two Double XP Weekends ago, we've decided to do it again, this time as ROBOT DINOSAURS.

We have eight players willing to dedicate themselves and their weekend to driving a team from 1 to 50. We will be running regular missions and task forces, with papers only when we are completely out of other missions, and will completely avoid the AE "cheat." We will be playing Friday evening, along with all day Saturday and Sunday, following the traditional weekend format.

This project will start in Praetoria (because of our mixed team) and then move on to the Rogue Isles as part of The Pandemonium Posse on Champion server.

Toward the goal of sharing our fun with this community (and the world!), many of us have set up Twitter accounts that you can follow as we go along. A lot of us will even be "role-tweeting," posting as our Mechanosaur characters.

Our lineup:

Pyrodactyl (Fire/Dark Corruptor) http://twitter.com/pyrodactyl
Archeraeopteryx (Archery/Trick Arrow Corruptor) http://twitter.com/Archeraeopteryx
Velocireactor (Fire/Rad Corruptor)
Deinotherm (Electric/Thermal Controller) http://twitter.com/Deinotherm
Electriceratops (Electric/Sonic Controller) http://twitter.com/Electriceratops (That's me!)
Leviathanatos (Ice/Super Strength Tank) http://twitter.com/leviathanatos
Pteranodrone (Electric/Energy Blaster) http://twitter.com/P_Drone
Anklyothor (Mace/Shield Brute)

This list will be updated when more of us set up our Twitter accounts.

Also, I would like to share these:

ELECTRIKE IS PRETTY PRETTY PRINCESS! (Art by @Liz)


Click to embiggen.

That's missing Pyrodactyl, but has quick screenies of the rest of the Mechanosaurs, in their full robotic dinosaur glory.

For those that would like to follow us, but don't want to actually follow all of those Twitter accounts, simply search for the #2xXP hastag.

As you could glean from the Twitter feed, we didn't quite make it all the way to 50. However, none of us feel that badly about not making it because we sure had fun, we never grinded, we never farmed, we never went against the spirit of the experiment.

Anyone can hit 50. We wanted to see if we could do it in three days without getting bored and without resorting to "cheap" tricks.

We did 5 strike forces and were sometimes over the level cap and not earning XP. We finished them anyway. We took breaks when we needed them. We slept an adequate amount. We had fun. Since the fun was the point and was also the reason we didn't make it, I can't say we failed. We achieved the bigger of the two goals.

It's been over 6 months in the making, but it's finally here. Seven other Livejournal/City people and I are about to embark on a historic journey. (Okay, so it's not so historic, but I'm excited and have been watching Back to the Future.) Back in January, after the last 2xXP weekend, I recruited seven friends to help me with an experiment when double XP rolled around again.

The plan is to have a full, 8-man team at level one on Friday morning and have all 8 toons be 50 before the end of the weekend. We will be running as many Strike Forces as possible, entirely ignoring AE, and running as few papers as are necessary.

Formally known as Operation: Stop, Drop, and Roll, we are a team of 3 Dominators (Stop), 3 Shield Brutes (Drop), and 2 KinCorrs (Roll). We hope that this team makeup means that we will be able to tear through just about anything the game can throw our way.

Informally, we are the Candy Monsters 2xXPeriment, as our character theme is Candy Monsters. Over the course of the past 6 months, we brainstormed over 20 themes and then put them to a vote among ourselves. Candy Monsters was the theme that came out on top and now we consist of The ButterscotchBehemoth, The Wint O Green Wendigo, The Caramel Cockatrice, The SuckerSmashin Sphinx, Nougat Nefertiti, The Bubblegum Boogie Man, Sour Apple Succubus, Red Hot Imperial, and our 9th-player-in-spirit, The Big Rock Candy Golem.

If you're interested, I am Live Blogging the entire run through Twitter.
http://twitter.com/covcandymonster will have the updates and #2xXP will be the hashtag for the weekend if you want to add to the Twitter Double XP funtimes.

See you in the game!

I've searched around and found nothing (forgive me if this is elsewhere) but will the Arachnos costume pieces be available for characters other than the VEATs? Will they be available to other characters once the account has unlocked the VEATs?

I have a LOT of characters that have been waiting for tall collars for a long time, and I'd love to have them be available outside of the VEATs, even if you have to unlock the VEATs to unlock the costume pieces.

I've tried three check cards and a credit card, through four different institutions. I called two of them to make sure that there wasn't anything blocking charges from NCSoft and was assured that there wasn't.

None of them will go through.

What should I do?